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Welcome

A photo of Albert Einstein with a quote, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

With this admonition to his peers, Einstein left a tall order for today’s scientists. As disciplines subdivide, researchers specialize and society wrestles with increasingly complex scientific questions, is effective communication of the literature to a broad audience even possible?

In keeping with its mission to transform research communication, PLOS created SciComm as a forum for practitioners and readers of science toexplore the art and science of science communication. Recognizing that as researchers and science communicators we serve a broad global community, we will feature posts covering the exchange of information between scientists and with the general public.

As an open platform for opinion and discussion featuring independent voices unedited by PLOS, SciComm welcomes contributions from any of the following:

  • scientists who’ve added “science communicator” to their research CVs
  • science journalists and filmmakers
  • science historians and ethicists
  • citizen scientists
  • public information officers representing scientific institutions and private enterprises
  • social scientists and psychologists
  • clinicians, patients and patient advocates
  • science educators
  • policymakers, science funders, scientific societies, publishers
  • citizens of the world with an interest in science and medicine

Guidelines for SciComm bloggers:

Our overall purpose is to explore and share what works in the effective dissemination of science, giving weight to the evidence behind a particular approach, along with metrics for impact and best practices that might guide the future of this emerging field.

In posts exploring current issues within science, SciComm bloggers are invited to address problems and solutions in peer review, post publication review of scientific literature, collaborative research methods, reproducibility, research ethics, Open Access to the scientific literature and data sharing, impact factor and altmetrics, among other topics. Our first post in this category: When Open Access is the norm, how do scientists work together online? is by software developer and author, Jon Udell.

Bloggers discussing the public communication of science are encouraged to focus on case studies, including films and books, and questions of impact in disciplines where science communicators continue to face significant challenges, including climate change, nutrition, public health and genomics.

Note to readers: Unless otherwise stated, blog posts in SciComm solely reflect the views of their independent authors. These views are not necessarily shared by PLOS.

Anyone interested in blogging on SciComm should send an email to blogs@plos.org with your suggested topic and area of expertise.

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